With Virginia’s Win, The ACC Ties The PAC-12 For Most NCAA Championships

With Virginia’s win, the ACC has tied the PAC-12’s record for the most NCAA championships at 15. It’s worth mentioning that all but two of UCLA’s titles came prior to 1975 and the expansion of the field from 16 to 32. Until 1975, John Wooden’s UCLA team had to play just two games against mostly inferior Western competition. So in 1966-67, for example, UCLA’s path was Wyoming and Pacific and then the Final Four.

We’re not saying anyone was going to beat the Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) juggernaut - only Houston did in three years - but that’s a pretty easy road to the Final Four. It’s much more difficult today.

For instance, for Virginia to win Monday’s championship game, the Cavaliers had to go through Gardner-Webb, Oklahoma, Oregon, Purdue, Auburn and Texas Tech. And as great as Wooden was - and he said before his death he thought he’d have been even better in the modern era - there was no three point shot to neutralize Alcindor or, later, Bill Walton.

National champions from the ACC

1. 1957: UNC
2. 1974: NC State
3. 1982: UNC
4. 1983: NC State
5. 1991: Duke
6. 1992: Duke
7. 1993: UNC
8. 2001: Duke
9. 2002: Maryland
10. 2005: UNC
11. 2009: UNC
12. 2010: Duke
13. 2015: Duke
14. 2017: UNC
15. 2019: Virginia

ACC Teams that finished second:

1. 1964: Duke
2. 1968: UNC
3. 1977: UNC
4. 1978: Duke
5. 1981: UNC
6. 1986: Duke
7. 1990: Duke
8. 1994: Duke
9. 1999: Duke
10. 2004: Georgia Tech
11. 2016: UNC

Also, here are teams that won the national championship prior to joining the ACC:

1. 1980: Louisville
2. 1986: Louisville
3. 2003: Syracuse
4. 2013: Louisville